Taming Microsoft
Microsoft may be about to revolutionize the desktop computer--again--but its marketing tactics are all too familiar and intolerable.
Next month will see the release of Windows XP, a new operating system that will make it significantly easier to use computers for video conferencing, interactive gaming, music recording and a host of other technologies. The new system also represents a bonanza for Microsoft in which consumers are coerced into providing a great deal of personal information in order to use certain online features.
Depending on what the Bush administration does next, Windows XP could become a thinly veiled excuse for another of Microsoft’s historic, competition-crushing power grabs.
On Sunday, Microsoft announced that after intense pressure from federal and state officials, the company had decided to make it easier for users of XP to work with digital photography systems not designed by Microsoft. The decision, however, applies to only one competitor, Kodak. Government regulators should not allow Microsoft to open its system to a single company at a time.
Since a federal appeals court in June found Microsoft guilty of using monopoly power to stifle competition, the Bush administration’s top antitrust official, Charles A. James, has defied the conventional wisdom that the president would adopt a knee-jerk, pro-Microsoft stance. However, James and former President Bill Clinton, who has reportedly been approached to lead a new round of antitrust settlement talks with Microsoft, will have a formidable task before them, given Microsoft’s anticompetitive conduct.
Last month, for instance, Microsoft promised that it would let PC makers place the icons of Microsoft competitors such as America Online and Sun Microsystems, the maker of a popular program called Java, on the XP’s desktop screen. But last week PC company executives complained that this “freedom” was quite limited. For example, Microsoft said that if a PC maker puts an icon for AOL on the desktop, then it is required to place three Microsoft icons on the desktop as well.
Microsoft competitors are now lobbying to block XP’s official release Oct. 25. That’s going too far. There’s nothing wrong with Microsoft’s attempt to “integrate” new technologies into the PC. However, the Bush administration and Congress should twist arms to ensure that Microsoft doesn’t repeat its past, using integration as an excuse to stifle innovation.
